Il KGB (Comitato per la sicurezza dello Stato) è stata la più grande organizzazione spionistica mai vista al mondo. Senza la sua onnipresente sorveglianza, l'unione «monolitica» dell'URSS avrebbe cessato di esistere. Sono state le milizie del KGB che hanno tenuto sotto controllo le frontiere di terra e di mare. È stato il KGB che ha vigilato su scuole, accademie e università. Attraverso i suoi innumerevoli censori ha esaminato tutto il materiale a stampa. Il Comitato ha diretto la scienza e la medicina, ha controllato polizia ed esercito, ha istituito in ogni città, paese e villaggio una rete di informatori per poter conoscere il comportamento e le attitudini degli oltre 270 milioni di abitanti dell'URSS. L'Autore fornisce un'analisi dettagliata della struttura del KGB rivelando quanto sia stato importante il raggio d'azione dei suoi agenti.

When Western intelligence services recognize a global jihadist attack has been mounted, the United States and the UK--its primary targets--lead the counter-offensive. Sally Hanning, a brilliant British MI5 agent whose parents were massacred in a terrorist ambush, is seconded to the CIA task force to hunt the Iranian mastermind through Al Qaeda's intricately coded use of social media and the Internet. Jack Irvine is NSA's guilt-burdened code-cracker--it was his diplomat-father's mistake that instigated the ambush in which Sally's parents died--who hacks his way into Iran's intelligence service.

Attack after attack is foiled but the Al Qaeda mastermind eludes MI5 and the CIA every time. As they prepare to head off the final, ultimate attack, they realize, almost too late, that the plot is far more sinister than they had ever thought possible.

Britain's MI5 tolerates Charlie because he's their best field agent. What none of his colleagues knows, though, is that he is married to Natalia Fedova, a colonel in the FSB, the Russian intelligence successor to the KGB. It's a secret that could land her in front of a firing squad, and him in jail for life. Worst of all, their daughter would then end up in a Russian state orphanage.

But a frantic call from Natalia has brought their secret out, and Charlie must lead a combined MI5/MI6 mission to rescue her. He soon realizes that his higher-ups have other priorities than his family's safety. Charlie will have to outwit not just the Russians but his own government as well to protect the lives of his wife and child.

Clever, unpredictable, and exciting, Red Star Burning shows why Brian Freemantle has been widely praised as one of the greatest living espionage novelists.